A Lesson in Political Economics

Before we get started, just a quick reminder:
The 'deficit' is the yearly difference in income vs. spending (ie: when you spend more than what you make).
The 'debt' is the money borrowed to pay for these continuing deficits.

Also, please note that as far as I can surmise, none of these numbers include the cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. These numbers are also a few months old, but the basic statistics remain the same.

The Federal Government:
The total GNP (Gross National Product) of the U.S. is approximately $14 trillion dollars (http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls). The Feds receive around 18.5% in taxes (chart #3 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/08msr.pdf), or about $2.7 trillion.
Now, the total national debt is approximately $9.2 trillion, but to be fair, we'll only use the public debt, which is $5.1 trillion (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np).
Even using the lower (public) debt number, that puts the debt to income ration at close to 190%. Again, these are unsecured loans. It would be like someone making $100,000/yr, with a credit card debt of $190,000. Pretty sad, to say the least.

The current spending is over $3 trillion, giving us a current federal deficit of $306 billion for the year, adding even more to the debt.

as of: 2007-Q3 (in billions)
Total receipts 2,712.8 (Fed gov't income)
Total expenditures 3,018.8 (Fed gov't spending)
Net lending or net borrowing (-) -306.0 (Fed deficit)
(these numbers are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov)
(the actual table: http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=85&First...)
Remember, these numbers are adjusted every Quarter, so it may be a little more or less by the end of the year. In essence, they are like an estimate, with the final numbers coming at the end of the fiscal year.

Totals (as a nation):
If we look at the totals (as a nation: fed/state/local), we come to the higher number of $9.2 trillion.
Here we can see the total receipts and expenditures:

as of: 2007-Q3 (in billions)
Total receipts 4,231.1
Total expenditures 4,671.2
Net lending or net borrowing (-) -440.9
(these numbers are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov)
(the actual table for these numbers are at http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp#Mid).
Again, these are adjusted numbers, as above.
So, as a nation, the deficit is approximately $440 billion for this year, with a total national debt of $9.2 trillion.

At the current rate of debt accrual, well, I'll let you make your own conclusions, but as you can see, the financial outlook does not look promising.
Now, I don't want to get into a position of 'finger pointing', but the fiscal irresponsibility throughout the current presidential administration has been appalling. Let's hope that 'whoever' is in charge after the next election, will 'see the light' and work to stop the downward spiraling economy. My fingers are crossed.

Some personal thoughts:
I fail to see how we will ever be able to pay off the debt as long as we continue to have such large deficits.
Looking at the White House's 2008 budget (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/08msr.pdf), I find that they are using 'Red Herrings' to make things look better than what they are. In particular, they like to show the 'deficit' (and other items) as a percentage of GNP. However, it's really the actual receipts (income) that the government makes that should be the deciding factor. It's this income that runs the country, not the GNP (although, generally speaking, the higher the GNP, the more the government makes). This makes for a truer picture: so instead of a deficit of 1.5% of GNP (Chart #1 - http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/08msr.pdf), we would have a deficit of over 11% when compared to federal receipts (income).
Using GNP as a percentage would be like me using the company I work for as my basis of financial status. Here's an example (using the same basic percentages of the above 'federal' data): the company I work for makes $1 million. I make $185,000/yr. I spend $206,000/yr, or a deficit of $21,000/yr. My credit card debt is $351,500. Hmmm, of course, this would never happen. However, I could say that my deficit is only 1.5% of my company's gross income, when in reality, it's 11% of my true income. The same can be said about the my debt. Why, it's only 35% of the my company's gross income, but in reality, it's 190% of my actual income. (these numbers may be off by a little bit, but the basics still apply). Is this any way to run a country?

Hmmm, and I thought 'billions' (let alone 'trillions') were suppose to be 'astronomical' numbers. Now they're just economic numbers.